COVID-19 Roundup: ‘Fan Pod’ Concert to Go Ahead on New Date

The controversial “fan pod” concert in Arkansas was cleared to go ahead on a new date of May 18.

Mark Brown, operator of the TempleLive venue in Fort Smith, wanted to stage the Travis McCready show today with the premises reorganized to take account of COVID-19 social-distancing and sanitizing rules. He made those plans when Arkansas hoped to start raising its lockdown orders on May 4, but the state decided to postpone until May 18.

Governor Asa Hutchinson, who’d threatened to take whatever measures necessary to prevent the show from going ahead, said, "The fact that the concert promoter moved the date three days forward to May 18 showed that it is not that hard to abide by the same rules that apply to everyone else. I’m delighted that on Monday … the concert can proceed and we can welcome [fans] to the venue.”

Meanwhile, Motley Crue will host a lockdown viewing of their biopic The Dirttoday at 7PM ET, complete with live commentary on Twitter and Instagram. Band members will be joined in the discussion by members of the movie’s cast and crew, while fans watch the movie at home.

In the latest videos streamed by artists in lockdown, Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner released a cover of Iron Maiden’s “To Tame a Land,” Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante unveiled a new take on Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” and Fozzy frontman Chris Jericho led an all-star group through a rendition of Kiss’ “No No No.” You can watch all three clips below.

Megadeth bassist David Ellefson predicted that the coronavirus effect wouldn’t last forever and argued that the experience wasn't a totally negative one. “I think what happens is crisis also creates opportunity,” he told FM94 (via Blabbermouth). “We’ve got all these digital platforms and all these things around us, and our phones and our computers. … I think it’s kind of funny to watch people putting bands together over the internet and on Skype. The truth of it is we've able to do this for a long time; it’s just we needed a crisis to make it become suddenly important. If nothing else, we're probably utilizing our technologies maybe to a little better potential now than we were a few month ago. … Rather than posting selfies, we're actually using it to do things that help other people and bring people together and create a sense of community, and I think that's a good use of the technology.”

Lita Ford said that some form of normality would be restored to the live music scene, but it would take time. “I think we're over the hump, and it's on its way out,” she told Kiki Classic Rock. “I don't think it's gonna be one of those situations where everybody just rushes to a rock concert. We're gonna have to sort of gear up again and work our way back up. I don't think it's gonna take too long.”

Roger Daltrey asked people to remember that while the coronavirus is foremost in their minds, people with other illnesses still need help. The Who singer spoke after his annual Teenage Cancer Trust concerts in London were canceled, leaving the nonprofit in financial trouble.

“We need a vital lifeline at the moment, and we won’t get it from the first round of charitable money coming out of the government, because that’s got to be tailored specific,” he said. “It’s not easy raising money. You go out there with a bucket, and you come back with a million pounds and you see how hard it is. It’s really tough, so it’s heartbreaking to see us in the state that we are in, where all our fundraising has been stopped. … To survive this we have to raise between 5 to 7 million this year. So whatever you can give – it doesn’t matter what it is, it will really help us.”

There are currently 4.53 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, with 303,438 deaths and 1.71 million recoveries. Of the 2.52 million active cases, 98 percent are reported to be mild and 45,560 are serious or critical. In the U.S., the total stands at 1.46 million cases, with 86,912 deaths and 318,027 recoveries.